UAV Communication Engineer

Manastu Space; Navi Mumbai; On-site; INR 1,800,000 - 3,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Manastu Space is seeking an experienced embedded systems architect to own the end-to-end data transport stack for a fleet of drones. You will design pipelines for low-latency video and MAVLink telemetry, build relay infrastructure, and ensure secure, scalable operations across fleets.

You will defend architectural choices with measurements and ADRs, and prototype new transports rapidly to validate decisions.

Qualifications

• Broad working knowledge of the real-time transport landscape — SRT, WebRTC, RTSP/RTP, RTMP, MQTT, VPN/overlay networks, raw UDP — with production depth in at least 2–3 of them.
• Proven architecture-selection ability: can evaluate options against latency/bandwidth/reliability/cost budgets, choose, and defend the choice in writing (ADRs).
• Rapid prototyping habit: can build a working proof-of-concept of an unfamiliar transport or pipeline in days, measure it, and land a clear conclusion.
• Deep Linux networking: UDP/TCP internals, NAT/CGNAT traversal, VPNs; fluent with tcpdump/Wireshark.
• Experience transporting device telemetry or control data over unreliable networks (MQTT, raw UDP protocols, or similar) with delivery guarantees and per-device authentication.
• Has deployed and operated server-side media infrastructure: a media server or SFU (MediaMTX, SRS, Janus, LiveKit) or equivalent relay work.
• Codec literacy at the systems level: how GOP/keyframes/bitrate interact with transport and recovery (not encoder implementation).
• Python plus one of C++/Go; server ops basics (VPS provisioning, TLS/certs, systemd).

Responsibilities

• Own the system that moves two independent data streams — low-latency video and bidirectional MAVLink telemetry/control — from all drones simultaneously to one dashboard, reliably, securely, and at fleet scale.
• Make the architecture decisions and defend them with measurements.
• Write the pipelines, run the relay infrastructure, and carry a live fleet.
• Architecture for aggregating video + MAVLink telemetry from multiple aircraft onto one dashboard, scaling the system beyond today's single-drone ceiling.
• Transport selection and defense — evaluating options against latency/bandwidth/reliability/cost budgets and documenting the call in writing (ADRs).
• Relay infrastructure: deploying and operating media server/SFU and MAVLink routing at fleet scale.
• Security and reliability by design: per-device authentication, encrypted MAVLink, relay redundancy — built in from the start, not retrofitted.

Skills

Real-time transport

Architecture selection

Rapid prototyping

Linux networking

Telemetry over networks

Media infrastructure

Codec literacy

Python & C++/Go

Education

B.Tech / M.Tech in Electronics & Communication Engineering

Job description

About the Company

Manastu Space is a Space Safety and Logistics company focused on making space safe, sustainable, and accessible. We develop technologies to address critical challenges such as space debris mitigation and green propulsion, enabling safer satellite operations, and long-term sustainability of the space ecosystem.

Our work sits at the intersection of advanced engineering, applied research, and mission-critical systems, requiring deep technical capability and long-term thinking.

Email: [e-mail]

About the Role

Every drone we fly carries a flight controller (ArduPilot/PX4, MAVLink) and an embedded Linux companion computer (Rockchip RK3588 / Jetson class) with its own 4G/5G link. Today, our ground station handles one aircraft at a time — video and MAVLink telemetry/control work, but there is no owner and no architecture for running this across a fleet. Security and reliability gaps that don't show up at one drone will surface the moment we add more.

You will own the system that moves two independent data streams — low-latency video and bidirectional MAVLink telemetry/control — from all drones simultaneously to one dashboard, reliably, securely, and at fleet scale. This is a build-and-own role: you make the architecture decisions and defend them with measurements, write the pipelines, run the relay infrastructure, and carry a live fleet.

Responsibilities

• Own the system that moves two independent data streams — low-latency video and bidirectional MAVLink telemetry/control — from all drones simultaneously to one dashboard, reliably, securely, and at fleet scale.


• Make the architecture decisions and defend them with measurements.


• Write the pipelines, run the relay infrastructure, and carry a live fleet.


• Architecture for aggregating video + MAVLink telemetry from multiple aircraft onto one dashboard, scaling the system beyond today's single-drone ceiling.


• Transport selection and defense — evaluating options against latency/bandwidth/reliability/cost budgets and documenting the call in writing (ADRs).


• Relay infrastructure: deploying and operating media server/SFU and MAVLink routing at fleet scale.


• Security and reliability by design: per-device authentication, encrypted MAVLink, relay redundancy — built in from the start, not retrofitted.


• Rapid prototyping of unfamiliar transports or pipelines, measured and validated in days.

Qualifications

Experience: Minimum 3 years of working experience

B.Tech / M.Tech in Electronics & Communication Engineering

Required Skills

• Broad working knowledge of the real-time transport landscape — SRT, WebRTC, RTSP/RTP, RTMP, MQTT, VPN/overlay networks, raw UDP — with production depth in at least 2–3 of them.


• Proven architecture-selection ability: can evaluate options against latency/bandwidth/reliability/cost budgets, choose, and defend the choice in writing (ADRs).


• Rapid prototyping habit: can build a working proof-of-concept of an unfamiliar transport or pipeline in days, measure it, and land a clear conclusion.


• Deep Linux networking: UDP/TCP internals, NAT/CGNAT traversal, VPNs; fluent with tcpdump/Wireshark.


• Experience transporting device telemetry or control data over unreliable networks (MQTT, raw UDP protocols, or similar) with delivery guarantees and per-device authentication.


• Has deployed and operated server-side media infrastructure: a media server or SFU (MediaMTX, SRS, Janus, LiveKit) or equivalent relay work.


• Codec literacy at the systems level: how GOP/keyframes/bitrate interact with transport and recovery (not encoder implementation).


• Python plus one of C++/Go; server ops basics (VPS provisioning, TLS/certs, systemd).

Preferred Skills

• MAVLink ecosystem: mavlink-router, sysid-based multi-vehicle routing, MAVLink 2 signing.


• MQTT brokers in production: QoS levels, last-will, per-device credentials at fleet scale.


• coturn/TURN operations; WebRTC data channels.


• GStreamer/FFmpeg familiarity — enough to reproduce and debug streams end-to-end at the boundary with the embedded engineer.


• Has shipped video-over-cellular or teleoperation backend before (drone, bodycam, AV, broadcast contribution).


• VPN overlays in production: WireGuard, Tailscale/ZeroTier.


• Cloud recording and object-storage lifecycle design (S3/B2/R2).

Who Does Well Here

• Operates without support — builds from nothing, ships without a team behind them, owns mistakes.


• Defends technical decisions in writing and works the boundary with the embedded/firmware engineer and ops without friction.